On October
4, a small group of American veterans
went to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
(VA) in Washington, DC, to talk
to officials there about veteran suicides,
veteran homelessness, veteran joblessness, and other veteran struggles. No one from the department would
talk to them.

Even the contingent of Homeland Security guards blocking the door
wouldn't explain to the veterans why
they couldn't come in. So they
stayed on the sidewalk in front of 810 Vermont Avenue, a few hundred yards from
the White House, and established Occupy
Dep't of Veterans Affairs and they've been there ever since,
even through Hurricane
Sandy.

After more than a month, Veterans
Affairs officials still have not
talked to any of the diverse
group. Instead, the VA has
continued low level police harassment
and frequent power washing of the sidewalk, threatening to arrest anyone who
interfered with the power washing.
Trinity Church in New York City used similar
tactics against Occupy Wall Street in 2011.

Despite the length of this occupation in the nation's
capitol and the importance of the issues it raises, there has been almost no
media coverage other than a couple of pieces by Cory V. Clark
on OpEd
News and scattered social media posts. Searches of the Washington Post, New York Times, and DemocracyNOW all produced the same result --
nothing.

Medic in Viet-Nam, Still Trying to Heal
People

In a USTREAM video by Occupy Eye on Common Dreams that was about the Tar Sands Blockade in East Texas,
the coverage gets to the Veterans Affairs about 40 minutes in. There a man who calls himself "Frosty,"
a Viet-Nam veteran and former medic, with a bushy white beard, describes what
it's been like spending a month on the sidewalk trying to get to talk to the
bureaucrats charged with looking after his welfare and that of his fellow vets
from half a dozen American wars.

Articulate and friendly in demeanor, Frosty has intense
things to say -- for example, that the VA has only 19 suicide hotlines in the
whole country, and that a caller reaches only a recording and gets only a
recorded promise of a callback within 24 hours. "The VA doesn't care," he says, noting that the suicide
rate among veterans is currently estimated an 18 a day, and likely
under-reported.

Like the other vets sharing the sidewalk in front of the VA,
the first thing Frosty wants is to establish a veterans' council that will have
direct access to the VA, and to which the VA will have to be responsive. Some of the veterans are trying to work
with Congress to make this happen, to improve VA response to all veterans'
issues, but especially suicides, homelessness, and joblessness.

Current estimates cited by vets are that there are more than
750,000 homeless veterans in
the United States, about a quarter of the total homeless population of three
million. The Department of Veterans
Affairs puts the number much lower, based on
a January 2011 survey. The VA
Secretary, retired general Eric Shinseki has, according to the VA website, "announced the federal
government's goal
to end Veteran homelessness by 2015." In May 2011, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled
that the VA's "unchecked incompetence" was an unconstitutional of veterans'
benefits.

The current jobless
rate for veterans aged 18-24 is 29%, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics.

No One's Talking About Depleted Uranium
Poisoning, Yet

Not all veterans are supportive of Occupy the VA. The website "This Ain't Hell, But you can
see it from here" refers to the vets at the VA as "a bunch of scruffy-looking
folks claiming to be veterans," then misrepresents why they're there. Among the mostly hostile comments is
this one from November 6 (which was immediately attacked):

I
was there just yesterday, and I have to say, those scruffy people are
Occupiers, they want a different world, and there is nothing wrong with that.
they are supporting those that are standing up for our veterans. To put them
down is a symptom of what is wrong with this country. Didn't we ignore our
veterans when they were in Vietnam, and did not learn a lesson. They are not
getting their benefits, because of a new computer program, and the vets are
900,000 behind, and are waiting a year or more for those benefits. 18 soldiers
commit suicide a day because of no mental health treatment. Wake up, stop
criticizing people who are standing up instead of sitting at a computer. By the
way my husband died of Agent Orange at age 47, my neighbor 29 Afghan vet shot
himself in the head, so don't put down those standing up. Shame on you.

Veterans Affairs has been a troubled agency for
decades now, sometimes better, sometimes worse, rarely adequate to meet the
need. After Viet-Nam the agency
was in denial about Agent Orange poisoning the troops and Vietnamese alike. Later it took a decade or more for the
agency to accept the reality of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder. Today, only Frosty is talking about
depleted uranium poisoning the troops, Iraqis, Afghanis, and people anywhere
else our military has used it.

Vermonter living in Woodstock:
elected to five terms (served 20 years) as side judge (sitting in Superior, Family, and Small Claims Courts);
public radio producer, "The Panther Program" -- nationally distributed, three albums (at CD Baby), some (more...)